Cup hero Wilson dies of dementia, health scourge of the 1966 team
RAY WILSON, who was one of four players from England’s 1966 World Cup-winning football team suffering with Alzheimer’s or memory problems, died yesterday at the age of 83.
Wilson was 69 when he was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, a disease that Nobby Stiles and Martin Peters also have. Jack Charlton is another of the team now experiencing memory problems.
Following a Telegraph campaign calling for research into the potential link between football and neurological disease, the Football Association and the Professional Footballers’ Association agreed to fund a new study that began earlier this year.
News of Wilson’s death emerged as Gareth Southgate named his England squad for this summer’s World Cup in Russia. The FA said yesterday that it was “shocked and saddened” at the loss of another member of England’s most iconic and successful team.
Bobby Moore, captain of the team, had died of cancer in 1993 and Alan Ball, the youngest player, died after a heart attack in 2007.
Wilson was capped 63 times by England and played every match during the 1966 World Cup finals. The leftback and oldest member of Sir Alf Ramsey’s England team, Wilson was still living with Pat, his wife, in Yorkshire and was a regular supporter of Huddersfield Town, the Premier League club. He played more than 250 games for Huddersfield before joining Everton, where he also won the 1966 FA Cup. “In many people’s eyes, the best English left-back ever,” said Jimmy Greaves, his England team-mate. “Goodbye, old friend.”
Sir Bobby Charlton, another England team-mate, said that he was “deeply saddened by the awful news” and described Wilson as “a great man, an excellent team-mate and a close friend”. Huddersfield Town said that it was “devastated” by the news.
Wilson worked as an undertaker following his retirement as a player and only received an MBE in 2000, 34 years after the World Cup win.
Many other former professional footballers have also been diagnosed with neurological problems. George Cohen, who played alongside Wilson in the 1966 team, told The Telegraph that the old leather balls would make him feel sick when he headed them and John Stiles, the son of Nobby, said that the problem appeared almost “epidemic” among former players.
It is 16 years since Jeff Astle, another former England international, died from a type of dementia subsequently proved to be caused by head trauma.
The Jeff Astle Foundation, which was set up by the family after an inquest delivered a verdict of death by “industrial disease”, has been approached by more than 350 families of former footballers.